Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- A note on documentation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The rise of international organizations
- 3 The legal position of international organizations
- 4 The foundations for the powers of organizations
- 5 International organizations and the law of treaties
- 6 Issues of membership
- 7 Financing
- 8 Privileges and immunities
- 9 Institutional structures
- 10 Legal instruments
- 11 Decision making and judicial review
- 12 Dispute settlement
- 13 Treaty-making by international organizations
- 14 Issues of responsibility
- 15 Dissolution and succession
- 16 Concluding remarks: Towards re-appraisal and control
- Bibliography
- Index
13 - Treaty-making by international organizations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the First Edition
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Acknowledgements
- Table of cases
- A note on documentation
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The rise of international organizations
- 3 The legal position of international organizations
- 4 The foundations for the powers of organizations
- 5 International organizations and the law of treaties
- 6 Issues of membership
- 7 Financing
- 8 Privileges and immunities
- 9 Institutional structures
- 10 Legal instruments
- 11 Decision making and judicial review
- 12 Dispute settlement
- 13 Treaty-making by international organizations
- 14 Issues of responsibility
- 15 Dissolution and succession
- 16 Concluding remarks: Towards re-appraisal and control
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
For many years, it has been seriously debated whether international organizations could actually enter into international commitments. In other words: did they have the capacity to conclude treaties? Or was treaty-making rather something they were incapable of doing unless specifically and explicitly empowered to do so? If it was the latter, then how should commitments entered into by organizations be explained in the absence of explicit powers?
The constitutions of the earlier organizations did not contain specific provisions with respect to treaty-making, with the League of Nations Covenant constituting a prime example. Indeed, the absence of any specific provision in the Covenant was one of the reasons why some of the judges of the ICJ, in the various Mandate cases, found that the Mandate could not be regarded as a treaty between South Africa and the League of Nations. Such would, they reasoned, presuppose treaty-making competence on the part of the League, and in the absence of a clause conferring such power, treaty-making competence was not lightly to be presumed.
Nowadays, it is reasonably well established that international organizations may conclude treaties, although there is still some debate as to where the capacity to conclude these treaties comes from if no explicit competence is contained in the constituent documents.
At this point, much is often made of a distinction between the capacity to do something and the competence to engage in that activity. The former is abstract, denoting a general capability, whereas the latter is more concrete and specific.
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- Information
- An Introduction to International Institutional Law , pp. 251 - 270Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009